Very interesting. On paper, it looks remarkably like the 3800-series... had me wondering there for a few minutes.

No award? It's thoroughly unglamorous, but it seems to kick a liberal amount of ass in its category. People choking along on 8500/8600's and 2400/2600's could likely get a pretty solid upgrade without shelling out too much cash or requiring a new PSU.

Teeny little error: Power consumption charts, y-axis - 9500GT 612MB

If I missed the explanation, I apologize, but you feel that a quad is a good match for the cards in this review? As opposed to a slightly faster dual-core? Just curious.

No award? It's thoroughly unglamorous, but it seems to kick a liberal amount of ass in its category. .

Nope. I won't and never will give an award to an Engineering Sample. While the concept is amazing, the whole package is still unfinished which makes it a bit hard to give an award to a particular product which will never make it to the retail market in the form it was reviewed. If one of ATI's AIBs would have stepped up to the plate and sent us a full retail package of a finished product, you would have seen awards handed out left, right and center.

Quote:

If I missed the explanation, I apologize, but you feel that a quad is a good match for the cards in this review? As opposed to a slightly faster dual-core? Just curious.

My thoughts on this are two-fold. On my own personal HTPC I use an underclocked Q6600 because I do alot of video and high-def audio transcoding. From my now short experience with the Q9300 I can seriously say that it is the perfect companion for a mid to high-end HTPC which does processor intensive tasks on a regular basis. Once the price comes down over the next few months I think it will be the chip to have for HTPCs and lower-cost PCs. This is the realm the HD 4670 plays in so it naturally goes hand in hand.

As for a faster dual core, there is little doubt in my mind that an E8400 would work even better with this card and may have even brought the scores up significantly in some cases. However, many people I know who are looking at the HD 4670 are not looking at a 3Ghz processor. They are looking at processors like the E7200 or AMD 5200+. The E7200 has nearly the exact same core speed as the quad used in the review while the 5200+ should be about 15% slower in single core processing.

So, in the end I think it all has to do with what you use the PC for and what your budget is. One thing is certain though: there was no way I was going to use my QX9770 for this review.

Interesting review SKY.. Close battle between the 4670 and 3850, however in games like COD4, the 4670 had a pretty darn good advantage. Some games favor 3850, some 4670, but it comes down to the temperature and power consumptions where its clearly better than the 3850.

Nice review Sky. I wich you will make an update when retail cards will be available to compare with this engineering sample and to see if they will be has good has this one. Will probably take a look to this card in a couple of month when I will probably build a new PC for my mom.